12hr Game Story

[Cyrien]

The Alteri don't eat or breathe. They are self contained entities. Any breach of their exoskeleton results in death. One of their physical frailties and their primary lack of ground combat ability. Alteri young are born en masse, several dozen per hatching and the parents is killed in the process. IE the parents die mating and the eggs mature in the corpses and then hatch. The rest of the Caste they are born into raises them. Only elderly Alteri are expected to reproduce for what should be obvious reasons.

I had all this down in the original descs for the race but have since lost it when I switched computers so now I have to rebuild it.

[Puke]

what the hell do they run on, cold fusion?

[Cyrien]

The idea is basically the same as a planet. Each one is a self contained eco-system, the basic resources for which are garnered during the egg stage from the leftovers of the dead parents and surrounding environment. Eventually everything that can be used inside is, that is old age for them, and nothing can stop it or extend lifespan. In addition, the secondary source of energy is the sun. They evolved on a planet with no atmosphere composed of ice. This means very low electromagnetic field and high ambient radiation. Their bodies are capable of absorbing and harnessing the radiation. A sort of super photosynthesis that keeps their internal eco-systems running.

They are an very biologically complex species with an evolutionary timeline that when compared with earth would start with the earliest dinosaurs and end... now.

Note the species did not evolve on an airless void world, as the original atmosphere was liquid rich and very thick. The world slowly died due to the lack of an electromagnetic field and all other life was wiped out as the atmosphere was slowly torn away by solar winds and steadily dropping surface temperatures. They managed to evolve in a way to enable survival. Their planets Version of the cockroach.

Please pick them apart freely. I want to try and develop them as much as possible. Finding flaws or making suggestions would be quite helpfull.

[Atrocities]

The Starwolf Clan values this information and will put it to good use. Please, by all means, keep posting.

What would be of especially good use would be your ship designs, planetary locations and defenses. Your fleet locations would also be very helpful to our - um - historical research people.

[ October 14, 2003, 02:37: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[Cyrien]

Fleet locations? What? Can't you see them from your homeplanet? Oh wait... darn those cloaking devices...

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Cyrien:
Please pick them apart freely. I want to try and develop them as much as possible. Finding flaws or making suggestions would be quite helpfull.

All right, you did ask for it....

Let me get this straight -
you have a great number of creatures that, from hatching to death, need nothing beyond sunlight; at hatching, they need only their parent and the surrounding planetary material (ice, mostly). There are no predators, and no reason to prey upon themselves
- these plants needed mobility because __________________________________________
- these mobile plants needed an IQ because __________________________________________
- these mobile intelligent plants needed a society because __________________________________________

Order is unimportant on those - perhaps IQ came before mobility, for example - but there needs to be something to fill in the blanks; there is very little which will go to the work of improving itself without good reason to do so, and you don't seem to be referencing a Creator here.

[Cyrien]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

Let me get this straight -
you have a great number of creatures that, from hatching to death, need nothing beyond sunlight; at hatching, they need only their parent and the surrounding planetary material (ice, mostly). There are no predators, and no reason to prey upon themselves

- these plants needed mobility because __________________________________________
- these mobile plants needed an IQ because __________________________________________
- these mobile intelligent plants needed a society because __________________________________________

[/QB]

First. They aren't plants. They are closer to insects. The sunlight development was by necessity and not due to a direct relation to plants.

Right. Mobility was early on. They didn't evolve alone on the planet. Mobility was first as they evolved as an insectoid scavenger. At that point they resembled their current form about as much as the first mammals resemble modern humans.

Next would be a society. Think hermit crabs here(for a bug like example in the real world) or apes, chimps, any number of other creatures in the real world. While each works as an individual they tend to live in large colonies and Groups by nature. When left alone they tend to die due to depression. Close bonds within communities are in existence even before sentience. Note that even at those early stage weak psychic ability exists in the form of empathy(ability to feel the emotions of others), causing far closer community bonds than any example on earth.

Intelligence develops only much later as the atmosphere of the planet continues to burn off. Here intelligence as well as the more extreme physical changes develop all as a means of keeping the species alive in the face of drastic planetary changes that wipe out all other life. The first records for the Alteri occur shortly after total atmosphere burn off well after any remains of previous life have ceased. At this point the various Alteri Groups find each other and now possess stronger psychic abilities(still mostly of the empathic type but with some telepathy as the singular means of communication, no atmosphere after all). With direct telepathic communication there are no misunderstandings. Slowly the Alteri become a united society wherein each performs that which they are best suited for to best serve the society as a whole.

Next the Alteri still have the earlier inherent desire to expand and multiply like so many others. With no enemies the numbers rapidly get outa hand. Thus the drive to expand beyond the planet. Also the instinctual drives of their scavenger ancestors will push them to respect strength and conquer the weak.

Finally, there is other life on the planet... but it is all part of the Alteri. Microscopic life. Single celled and multicelled forming a ballanced and temporarily self sustaining eco-system out of each Alteri. Thus they do not process the radiation but a microscopic organism inside them does and in so doing creates biproducts that feed others and so on and so forth keeping the Alteri going.

Hope that answers your questions.